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The Luck Of The Devil

When I last phoned my Aunt, she had been taken to hospital with a suspected minor stroke and so I told my cousin I'd try to visit her at the weekend. Was about to ask brother for a lift (he has a Blue Badge) when he phoned first to say the gearbox on his car had packed up. When I phoned my cousin on the Friday to explain we couldn't make the visit, my Aunt answered - out of hospital and better, but shaken.
In appreciated for my concern she sent a £4,000 cheque for me and my brother, our early inheritance so to speak. The replacement gearbox + labour for my brother came to £2,500, which left me £1,500 and I had my eye on a new metal detector, but up until then could not justify the outlay. Sure enough the unexpected bills started arriving (cooker broke, bike got vandalised) soon after - but also the unexpected boosts as well (4 months refund on my season ticket instead of 3, re-evaluation of my severance package). I bought a new detector yesterday, not the eye-wateringly expensive one I day-dreamed about, merely the hugely expensive one I knew how to use (and have some change left over).
 
I just hit 4 out of 5 numbers again last night, on our Jersey Cash 5 lottery.
5 out of 5 numbers was $131,000 - my 4 numbers won $651.
I can't complain, but it would have been nice to get the 5 numbers!
I also hit $290 a few days ago on our Pick 3 numbers, and $40 the day after.
April is always my month!
 
Bad Bungle said:
When I last phoned my Aunt, she had been taken to hospital with a suspected minor stroke and so I told my cousin I'd try to visit her at the weekend. Was about to ask brother for a lift (he has a Blue Badge) when he phoned first to say the gearbox on his car had packed up. When I phoned my cousin on the Friday to explain we couldn't make the visit, my Aunt answered - out of hospital and better, but shaken.
In appreciated for my concern she sent a £4,000 cheque for me and my brother, our early inheritance so to speak. The replacement gearbox + labour for my brother came to £2,500, which left me £1,500 and I had my eye on a new metal detector, but up until then could not justify the outlay. Sure enough the unexpected bills started arriving (cooker broke, bike got vandalised) soon after - but also the unexpected boosts as well (4 months refund on my season ticket instead of 3, re-evaluation of my severance package). I bought a new detector yesterday, not the eye-wateringly expensive one I day-dreamed about, merely the hugely expensive one I knew how to use (and have some change left over).
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As long as you have a metal detector, you may often find you "have some change left over."

I'd love to have an unexpected windfall or two!
 
When I play the lottery, I always choose to let the computer pick the numbers. It's too much responsibility to choose them myself. If I were to lose a mega jackpot by just one number, I would much rather blame the computer than kick myself for picking the wrong number.
 
Kate In The Desert said:
When I play the lottery, I always choose to let the computer pick the numbers. It's too much responsibility to choose them myself. If I were to lose a mega jackpot by just one number, I would much rather blame the computer than kick myself for picking the wrong number.
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Also, when you pick your own numbers- you then have to do it every week for the rest of your life. Probably urban myths, but there's always the story about someone who just once forgot to get a ticket and that was the week their numbers came up.
 
Floyd1 said:
Also, when you pick your own numbers- you then have to do it every week for the rest of your life. Probably urban myths, but there's always the story about someone who just once forgot to get a ticket and that was the week their numbers came up.
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I don't know if I told everyone this before, but a few years back two brothers we knew had to play their parents' lottery ticket because the parents went on vacation for a week.
They had been playing the same 6 numbers for ten years with no luck, and were not going to miss a week.
Well of course the two brothers forgot all about the ticket, and the six numbers came out.
Their parents wanted to kill them, they lost millions. :(
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
I don't know if I told everyone this before, but a few years back two brothers we knew had to play their parents' lottery ticket because the parents went on vacation for a week.
They had been playing the same 6 numbers for ten years with no luck, and were not going to miss a week.
Well of course the two brothers forgot all about the ticket, and the six numbers came out.
Their parents wanted to kill them, they lost millions. :(
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Not an urban myth then!
 
Another Lottery story:
Two brothers were having a snack at the local lottery store. The one brother played the $2 scratch off tickets religiously, but had never won anything big. The other brother had never purchased a scratch off.
That particular day, the store owner had opened a new batch of $2 tickets, and this brother kept playing until he spent all the money he had with him.
He decided to run home and get more cash, instructing his brother that he would be right back, and telling the store owner not to let anyone else purchase tickets off that new roll.
Well, of course the brother got bored sitting there, and bought one ticket to pass the time.
Sure enough, he hit $30,000 and when the other brother returned he was not happy.
True lottery stories are stranger than fiction!
 
Six wins on Premium Bonds this month - one £100, four £50 and one £25. That covers the chalet rental for the recent Cornwall break and most of the diesel my brother used to get us there and back. Outstanding luck.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Six wins on Premium Bonds this month - one £100, four £50 and one £25. That covers the chalet rental for the recent Cornwall break and most of the diesel my brother used to get us there and back. Outstanding luck.
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Very lucky indeed! Congrats.
 
A little shine taken off last month's Premium Bond win when my Brother got a £60 Parking fine through the post after our Cornwall trip - 10 mins excess at a private carpark, no concession for Blue Badge and 50p for the Gents. Still, one £100, one £50 and two £25 wins this month and I'm not complaining at that.
 
For once a seeming chain of bad luck, a Friday the 13th sort of curse on the occupants of this house.

Recently my airbnb has mostly involved extended stays and frequent regulars, rather than the endless turnover of strangers. In the last 24 hours or so....
R overslept and missed his flight. T's car blew a tyre on his way up here. When he finally got here he had to call out a wheel replacement service. My mate Y who recently moved out after living here for months, his favourite fish died this morning inexplicably. He was reporting the death on the phone when i heard the shattering of glass downstairs and the yelp of the boy who's been living here with his mother. The little sod had been presumably pretend fighting with the mop and accidentally smashed the glass shade of the kitchen's ceiling light, shattering the lightbulb holder in the process. I ended up undoing the ceiling rose to remove the lampholder and get a matching fixture from screwfix..only to find, when stopping to use the loo on my way out, that this bit of diy had somehow shut off the lights in all the bedrooms and bathrooms. The fuse box had't tripped so it wasn't that and i had no option but to spend a hundred quid on an emergency electrician.
 
gattino said:
For once a seeming chain of bad luck, a Friday the 13th sort of curse on the occupants of this house.

Recently my airbnb has mostly involved extended stays and frequent regulars, rather than the endless turnover of strangers. In the last 24 hours or so....
R overslept and missed his flight. T's car blew a tyre on his way up here. When he finally got here he had to call out a wheel replacement service. My mate Y who recently moved out after living here for months, his favourite fish died this morning inexplicably. He was reporting the death on the phone when i heard the shattering of glass downstairs and the yelp of the boy who's been living here with his mother. The little sod had been presumably pretend fighting with the mop and accidentally smashed the glass shade of the kitchen's ceiling light, shattering the lightbulb holder in the process. I ended up undoing the ceiling rose to remove the lampholder and get a matching fixture from screwfix..only to find, when stopping to use the loo on my way out, that this bit of diy had somehow shut off the lights in all the bedrooms and bathrooms. The fuse box had't tripped so it wasn't that and i had no option but to spend a hundred quid on an emergency electrician.
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That's life aint it. Last week was full of hospital visits for us. Me with severe chest pains that I get from time to time involving a total of 16 hours over 2 days sitting about in various departments at local hospital. Whilst there Ms P's sister (in her early 50's) had another stroke and waited in A & E for 9 hours (really) to be treated. Ms P tired of being in constant back pain insisted on some action and we got an appointment at a different hospital where the doctor surprised us with an entirely new proposal for treatment, barely disguising his disgust that not much had been done previously to help. Uncle saw his cancer consultant and was told there was nothing else that could be done for him. Life sucks a bit occasionally doesn't it.
 
In the late 1990s, I was attending high school in the French suburb of Nanterre, West of Paris.

One morning, while I stood chatting with some friends in one of the high school's main corridors, I heard a strange "click" behind me.

I turned around, and to my utter amazement, there stood a local bully pointing what, I presume, was a blank firing gun right at me. He had sneaked behind and attempted to fire at my right ear. And he seemed very surprised because the gun's mechanism had opportunely jammed.

He was so startled by the failure of his dangerous trick that he did not even bother to hide his malicious intent, nor to express any regret.

He simply silently withdrew, trying to figure out why the gun had jammed, looking inside the gun and testing the trigger.

Fortunately, he never attempted anything again against me ... Actually, I never saw him again.

I often think about this incident, because, had his gun not jammed, I could have suffered a serious injury. Even if this was a blank firing gun, my hearing would have been damaged for the rest of my life ... I was lucky.

There was no rational motive for this guy to target me. He was known for his violent behaviour but I had no quarrel with him. He wasn't even a classmate of mine. So it's as if I had been saved from an agression I had done nothing to deserve.

I might have already told this story and its conclusion so sorry if I repeat myself, but I sometimes think how much better this world could be if guns jammed in similar circumstances. Unfortunately, too often, guns do not jam as they should do, in high school corridors ...

Edit :

Actually what bothers me the most with this story, is that I did not deserve to be so lucky. Until now, I haven't done anything special to deserve this lucky escape. I have an ambivalent feeling towards this incident.
 
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AmStramGram said:
I haven't done anything special to deserve this lucky escape.
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How do you know? We can't any of us know all the consequences of our actions. Please don't think like that. In any case you'd done nothing to deserve getting your hearing damaged. Besides you can't judge the incident from your perspective .... maybe the perpetrator or the others present learnt a valuable lesson and it modified something that could have been damaging in their future. We really really can't be sure.
Anyway you might be in a position to do something magnificent when you least expect it. :)
 
Sollywos said:
How do you know? We can't any of us know all the consequences of our actions. Please don't think like that. In any case you'd done nothing to deserve getting your hearing damaged. Besides you can't judge the incident from your perspective .... maybe the perpetrator or the others present learnt a valuable lesson and it modified something that could have been damaging in their future. We really really can't be sure.
Anyway you might be in a position to do something magnificent when you least expect it. :)
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Yes. I know. But I guess wondering for what purpose things happen the way they do, and torture oneself with endless "why ?" (e.g confusing "causes" with "purposes"), is human ... Had I been shot, I would also be asking myself : "Why ? This is not fair ! I didn't deserve that".

I suppose I should simply admit that everything is coincidental, that there were simply material causes for the gun jamming, and no "teleology", no "great project" of the Almighty Whatever, no protection from my great great great grandmother Lucy the Australopithecus or from the Aliens from Saturn. And yet my mind still spontaneously tries to find a hidden purpose behind the events of everyday life. It's an utter waste of time and energy, as I'd better focus on how to act in the future than pointlessly contemplate the past in search of hidden intents.
 
AmStramGram said:
Yes. I know. But I guess wondering for what purpose things happen the way they do, and torture oneself with endless "why ?" (e.g confusing "causes" with "purposes"), is human ... Had I been shot, I would also be asking myself : "Why ? This is not fair ! I didn't deserve that".

I suppose I should simply admit that everything is coincidental, that there were simply material causes for the gun jamming, and no "teleology", no "great project" of the Almighty Whatever, no protection from my great great great grandmother Lucy the Australopithecus or from the Aliens from Saturn. And yet my mind still spontaneously tries to find a hidden purpose behind the events of everyday life. It's an utter waste of time and energy, as I'd better focus on how to act in the future than pointlessly contemplate the past in search of hidden intents.
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If only the guy had left the house five minutes earlier, or ten minutes later he wouldn't have been killed by the drunk driver...........

Did the idiot get reprimanded in any way for this?
 
Floyd1 said:
If only the guy had left the house five minutes earlier, or ten minutes later he wouldn't have been killed by the drunk driver...........

Did the idiot get reprimanded in any way for this?
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Heard somewhere that they were the two saddest words in the English Language "If only...."
 
Hi @AmStramGram
'Yes. I know. But I guess wondering for what purpose things happen the way they do, and torture oneself with endless "why ?"'

Yep I get that totally it just feels like there should be a reason or purpose it is so hard to accept that it's just a random event isn't it. We just want to make sense of it.

Tunn11 said:
Heard somewhere that they were the two saddest words in the English Language "If only...."
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Can't argue with that!
 
I was toying with the notion of getting a new coil for my detector (£240), but as it wasn't in stock I sensibly booked my car in for a full service (£240) instead. After wandering around Aylesbury for five hours at -2C with a dead phone, I returned to the garage to find the bill was now £750 (brakes). What could I do - winter coming, MOT due in January, just had to swallow the £500 unbudgeted excess for a safe car.
Six premium bond wins today (4 x £100 + 2 x £25). I reckon it's my parents - honestly Mum, I'm OK.
 
To my surprize (and satisfaction) I have a story to relate here!

I recently bought some bookshelves. I had to rearrange part of my living room to fit them where I wanted, which also meant moving a pile of CDs. (I am pre-Millennial, so have accumulated those plastic things instead of streaming music like sane people now do.)
The pile was tidy but would not be tidy once moved. I have looked for storage options for them for over a year, but to no avail—the options are always too big, too small, too ugly or too expensive.

I had to borrow a car to pick up the bookshelves, and after dropping it off, planned to go to store A on my way home.
While walking I realized I wanted something at store B, which took me out of my way. Afterwards, as I headed back to store A, I saw on the sidewalk next to the street (in the "free zone"—it's not free if it's next to the building, but it's free if it's next to the street and there's no moving van around) there was a CD storage rack that matched the style of some of my other things and was just about the exact right size for the pile of CDs.

Took it home, washed it off, and now it will sit useful and demure in the corner next to my desk.
 
IbisNibs said:
I saw on the sidewalk next to the street (in the "free zone"—it's not free if it's next to the building, but it's free if it's next to the street
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American parking signage often seems very confusing to me, what with all the criteria involved- street cleaning etc.
Mind you, it may be that our cities are also as bad now.
 
grimace 2.png
must . . . not . . . derail . . .thread!
 
We are human. What defines us, what makes us distinct from all other species, isn’t our opposable thumbs, our facility with language, our capacity for ethical reflection, it’s our need to impose meaning on all that we encounter. Wasn’t there a book - by the eng. Lit. crit. I. A. Richards I think - entitled ‘The meaning of meaning’?Must check out eBay. Sounds like the ideal reading matter following a glass or two or a decent blunt.
 
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